Why do marketers revel in military jargon? Must we really rally troops to deploy conquest ads or fire quick hits of bleeding-edge apps?

Karen Dietz's insight:

Now here is a thought-provoking piece on how the language we use to describe our story activities can either constrain us or set us free.

I swear there are days when I experience being in a story war just like Jonah Sachs (Winning the Story Wars) says -- particularly when it comes to politics.

But that metaphor need not apply all the time and this article by Douglas Van Praet is a good counterbalance.

For Van Praet, using the language of war closes down our creativity. Makes sense. In response he has developed a 7-step process on how to inspire change that directly relates to organizational story work. And marketing. And branding. And leadership.

Here are the best articles from across the web that I can find on using stories and storytelling in business.

And visit my website for more information about my speaking, writing, coaching, consulting, and workshops at www.juststoryit.com

Karen Dietz's insight:

Editorial Statement For This Collection:

Thank you for visiting this curation of articles on business storytelling. I've chosen them because they actually make a contribution to our knowledge and wisdom about stories, show us how to apply stories to growing our businesses, or give valuable how-to tips.

I weed out all the junk. And besides, who needs another post in why storytelling is important?? Where's the beef?? We want the meat!

Based on my 25+ years of biz story experience, (plus a PhD in Folklore) I've written reviews of each article to share what I like best, what you can get from reading the article, or what may be missing in the article.

How To Find A Topic:Click on the Filter icon above (look for the 'funnel' shape), and view the tags. Select one that interests you, or type in a keyword in the search box. All the articles with that tag or keyword will appear.

I may occasionally review an article that I think is problematic as a way to educate us all, although most I will simply pass over. If you wonder if I've seen an article that is not included here, send me a message and I'll respond.

How To Suggest An Article: If you find an article you think I'll be interested in, click the 'Suggest' button above, past the URL of the article, and I will receive it. Or write me a comment with the URL by clicking on 'Reactions' at the bottom of any article. You will see where can post a comment, which I will also receive.

I trust you find many great insights and tips here. Many thanks for visiting and enjoy the articles!

And I hope you will also visit my website for more tips and tools, and to sign up for my newsletter. See you around the storytelling 'hood.

Leaders are decision-makers. They have to be. As soon as they walk into the office in the morning, they’re bombarded with decisions that have to be made: ‘Can our business partner sell our product in that new market?

Karen Dietz's insight:

What a great post from my colleagues over at Anecdote. This one is all about influencing decision makers by exposing them to storiesoutside their own experiences.

As Shawn Callahan points out, "And of the experiences that get noticed, a few are thought about and translated into a story that explains what happened. Over time, these accumulate into a repertoire of experience-based stories. It is this repertoire that guides intuitive decision-making. To influence a decision-maker, you need to change the stories their intuition relies upon."

He then goes on to give us tips for exactly how to do that. What I also love about Shawn's posts is how often then are based on solid research. At the bottom of the post you will find all the citations cited in the article. Yay! So we are talking hard science, not spouting platitudes. We need more of this kind of writing.

Didn't you just love it when your parents, grandparents or other extended family would tell stories about "when they were young" it was so different!? Well, why don't you tell a story about other client experiences with prospective clients? Turn your successes into sales today.

What a great post from my colleagues over at Anecdote. This one is all about influencing decision makers by exposing them to stories outside their own experiences.

As Shawn Callahan points out, "And of the experiences that get noticed, a few are thought about and translated into a story that explains what happened. Over time, these accumulate into a repertoire of experience-based stories. It is this repertoire that guides intuitive decision-making. To influence a decision-maker, you need to change the stories their intuition relies upon."

He then goes on to give us tips for exactly how to do that. What I also love about Shawn's posts is how often then are based on solid research. At the bottom of the post you will find all the citations cited in the article. Yay! So we are talking hard science, not spouting platitudes. We need more of this kind of writing.

What a great post from my colleagues over at Anecdote. This one is all about influencing decision makers by exposing them to storiesoutside their own experiences.

As Shawn Callahan points out, "And of the experiences that get noticed, a few are thought about and translated into a story that explains what happened. Over time, these accumulate into a repertoire of experience-based stories. It is this repertoire that guides intuitive decision-making. To influence a decision-maker, you need to change the stories their intuition relies upon."

He then goes on to give us tips for exactly how to do that. What I also love about Shawn's posts is how often then are based on solid research. At the bottom of the post you will find all the citations cited in the article. Yay! So we are talking hard science, not spouting platitudes. We need more of this kind of writing.

In recent months a debate has been brewing around whether shortform or longform content is winning the race for people’s attention. No doubt there are merits to both sides, but there seems to be some confusion abound the subject.

For clarity, longform means articles, white papers and e-books of 2,000 words or more, while shortform refers to content of 500 to 1,000 words.

Is there really a difference in their overall performances? Science suggests there is.

What the Studies Are Suggesting

Many of today’s Internet marketers swear by shortform content, citing a number of independent studies that indicate audience attention spans are falling and as much as 32 percent of users will begin abandoning websites in as little as five seconds if they are slow to load.

This doesn’t speak to the effectiveness of the format in reaching its audience in terms of visibility and findability through search. This is one of the most important advantages that longform content has over its counterpart....

Finding buyer pain is one of the first steps in the sales process. This deck shows you how to get there.

Karen Dietz's insight:

This SlideShare never mentions stories, but believe me -- the questions posed here will definitely spark stories in your prospects, and stories are exactly what you need.

Why? Because they are the richest form for finding out your customer's pain points. As we all know, this is a critical ingredient for making a sale.

I particularly like how the first few slides make the point that most prospects are numb to their pain. As the author (Juliana Crispo) of this post shares, sales happen when that pain is felt. Hence the questions that will evoke stories.

Write these questions down and keep them handy for when you are chatting with potential customers. I think it will make a world of difference.

Merriam-Webster declared 'science' the 2013 word of the year. But can reading something other than data and facts, say a work of fiction, help improve brain function? Anthony explains the possible benefits reading fiction can have.

Karen Dietz's insight:

What a fun video -- and full of great info about how reading stories builds better brains and better humans. The ad you have to deal with before the video is quite annoying, however. But hang in there -- the video is worth it.

We've known for awhile that spending time with engrossing fiction is one of the best ways to build empathy. This is a key skill to have in leadership, and also for any entrepreneur successfully interacting with customers and prospects.

This video shares additional story and brain benefits, too. Enjoy and story on!

Thanks to Karen Dietz we have this video at Scoop.it When the video begins you are rewarded with compelling science of how our minds are inspired when reading fiction and why storytelling is such impactful programming for our mind

I was just sent to this site to look at and I think it has some pretty awesome visual storytelling potential. I have no financial relationship here -- just passing along a new tool for you to consider.

I've tested out the site and app and really like it. It is very intuitive and easy to work with. The end result visually is stunning. Plus they just released their iPhone app today.

I think lots of you could use this tool -- myself included -- to create fabulous stories for your business. You might want to try it out.

Of course, your success with this tool will depend on actually crafting stories instead of just a progression of photos. You know -- stories that have a beginning-middle-end, a problem and resolution. And don't forget the transformation that occurs, and a key message at the end. But you know what to do!

Here's a great post that list Millennial trends, and how one business -- a car dealership -- completely revamped how they interacted with this age group. In the end, they are telling a better story, and giving Millennials way better stories to tell about the business.

Gotta love that. Hey, if a stodgy old auto dealership can do it, so can you. Get hooked up with these trends, make the shifts you need to so you are telling a better story, and generate better stories that others will share about you.

After three years of promising a blog redesign that would reflect my agency's focus on visual storytelling — welcome to Ishmael's Corner, version 2.0.

Karen Dietz's insight:

My colleague, the esteemed Lou Hoffman of The Hoffman Agency, sent me a link to his new blog design. When I saw it, I started dancing. It is totally rethinking telling your story through the entire blog design.

This article shares his frustrations and adventures with rethinking the blog. It's a great story in and of itself. The agency used the parallax format and tools to get the redesign done.

I had a fabulous opportunity, and time, speaking at the Women's Leadership online Summit on Tuesday and you can still listen to the recording. Trish Sadar interviewed me for 30 minutes on essential story skills leaders must have in order to nail their communications.

In fact, you can still participate in the entire summit -- for free!. Here's the info:

Want more advice on how to accelerate your leadership success?

If you're ready to learn incredible new skills to take your corporate job to the next level faster, and want to unlock the power of you so you can finally stand up and claim that executive position, check out this FREE "Women Leadership Summit for Emerging Leaders 2015 Unlock the Power of You" telesummit!

Join 21 influential women who are at the height of their game for 11 days of lessons, advice, and expert strategies on how to build your confidence and communication skills, overcome obstacles, and advance your career fast!

The founder of the Moth offers a few tips on how brands can tell their stories better.

Karen Dietz's insight:

Yes, be vulnerable -- but that's not the only great piece of advice George Dawes give us. Dawes is the founder of the Moth, and during the video shared in this post he talks about success stories are boring and overused. I agree.

One of my internet buddies, Os Ishmael @ICGJ_IDEATION alerted me to the post. The article, with accompanying Dawes video, was written by Tanya Dua @tanyadua, a brand reporter at Digiday in NYC. Thanks for putting it together Tanya, and thanks Os for sending it to me.

It started out like any other day in the fall of 1979. In the morning, I would attend classes where I was finishing up my degree in marketing. And in the afternoon, to pay for those classes, I would go to work selling ladies’ shoes at a nearby shoe store with the artless name, Shoeland. Anyway, little did I know, that on that day, at a job I absolutely hated, that the store manager, Joey Kaswalchezck, (aka Joey K or Joey "buy a vowel") - a guy who dropped out of high school because "it didn't pay very well" would tell me something tha

Karen Dietz's insight:

What a great story! And it contains timeless wisdom for any business or story professional that goes beyond sales. What's the bottom line for business storytelling? The answer is the key message of provided here. This post is written by my biz story branding colleague Jim Signorelli. It's a quick read so don't hesitate to dig in.

Read it. Keep it. Share the story and where you got it from. You'll be glad you did.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when I met Raf Stevens. He’s part of what I refer to as the “storytelling posse” on Twitter, those evangelizing business storytell

Karen Dietz's insight:

My colleague in Belgium, Raf Stevens, recently published his new book "Leadership, Storytelling, and the Power of Connection" (yay!) and this blog post shares some of Raf's thoughts on leadership and storytelling.

Here's what I appreciate most: the big point Raf makes is that the often scripted media-polished stories leaders tell will only take you so far -- and it's a short distance.

Instead, leaders need to focus on a whole host of stories that conveytheir depth and breadth of experience.

The 2 stories shared here in the post are terrific examples of just this principle. I know you will enjoy them.

What you already know about story still applies – great characters you want to spend time with, worlds that invite you in, stories building to moments of epiphany, recognition, revelation, catharsis and all that good stuff.

But the process of getting there changes from platform to platform. You have to develop narratives the right way for the right platform.

I just had a conversation the other day with a company wanting to share some of their customer stories digitally -- without ever spending time on the story itself. They were just in a rush to the technology, thinking the platform would generate a good story. Big mistake.

One story may not translate well in to all different channels, however -- nor achieve the results you seek. In this post transmedia expert Japhet Asher shares lots of insights about how NOT to lose your story as it morphs across platforms.

There is great wisdom shared -- and some good stories -- that will help you preserve the core of your story, and how to think about moving stories into different media.

Let's get more story wise, so when we share our stories across platforms, great results happen.

Michael Michalko explains that everyone is an artist and that it takes belief and persistence to nurture this quality. He offers seven principles about creative thinking that he wishes he'd known as a student.

Karen Dietz's insight:

OK -- this article never mentions the word storytelling, yet every single tenent listed -- and their definitions -- applies to storytelling. The post focuses on creativity, and storytelling is a creative act.

Here's how they translate into storytelling:

You are a storyteller

Storytelling is work -- it takes effort

You must go through the motions

Your brain is not a computer

There is no right answer

There is no such thing as failure

You don't see things as They are -- you see them as You are

Go read the article by Michael Michalko to get the definitions for each principle. Then stoke those creativity and storytelling fires the rest of the week.

A good public speaker takes their audience on a journey, leaving them feeling inspired and motivated. But structuring your speech to get your ideas across and keep your audience engaged all the way through is tricky. Try these eight storytelling techniques for a presentation that wows.

Karen Dietz's insight:

Ffion Lindsay at Sparkol does another terrific job putting together 8 story structures any business can use, then gives us examples for each. Better yet, for each structure she shares with us what situations they are good for. Yay!

If you are looking to refresh your stories and just want to play with sharing your stories in different ways -- or are stuck not knowing how to tell one of your stories -- then grab this article.

If you use these other structures, you won't get stuck in the monomyth of the hero (a good thing).

Monomyth dangers

I have noticed one piece of language changing, however. That is the word "Monomyth". Mono means one or alone. Mono + myth means one myth. Joseph Campbell coined this term to refer to the Hero's story as the one all encompassing archetype for narratives. From there it morphed into also meaning a narrative common to all people. But it has a stranglehold on our storytelling, as if there are no other kinds of stories to tell.

Now the word is being used without question. Make sure you listen to the video in this article by Chimamanda Adichie on The Danger Of A Single Story.

The monomyth of the hero's journey is eclipsing other kinds of stories to tell. In the mad rush for business storytelling, the hero's journey is often touted as the only story to pay attention to. Stories of community, origin stories, how we do things, cautionary tales, and the like are neglected, but we are starving for them.

This is one of the best articles on business stories I've read in a long time. The author not only explains different story structures, she indicates when to use them and includes video examples for each structure. Enjoy!

The Hero's Journey for business storytelling can be all wrong. It's too epic. Too long. And it assumes your audience cares. Here's what to do instead.

Karen Dietz's insight:

Here in San Diego we are in the midst of Comic-Con and super-heroes abound. I've donned my super-girl costume and am happily immersed in X-men movies.

And just in the nick of time, my Twitter buddy Os @ICGJ_IDEATION sent me this link to an article written by Maggie Patterson. I jumped up and now with joy, because despite my supergirl powers and love of action heroes, the hero's journey leaves a lot to be desired in business storytelling.

And this is exactly what Patterson is saying, too. I really like her twist on the hero's journey and how you can turn the stages of the journey into separate stories. I also like her take on why the hero's journey is so limiting.

I usually take a different path than Patterson does, though. For me, when we are stuck in the hero's journey, we miss other critical narratives businesses need to tell like community stories, origin stories, this is how it's done stories, etc.

Patterson also has a free guide to download, which I checked out. It's pretty good. My only quibble is that the questions posed in the document will mostly get you opinions and descriptions. You'll still have to dig for the stories.

Don't be anti-hero -- just augment your story list. Read the article for more insights and download the guide.

OK -- this supergirl is heading back to my X-men marathon and watching all the Comic-Con fans running around downtown! Have fun...

“We didn’t even know we were making such big mistakes with our visual imaging and the words we used on our website,” says Travis Timmons. “It probably cost us a lot.”

Karen Dietz's insight:

This is a great lesson for us all -- business is doomed if the story in our client's heads does not match the one we are telling. The company in this post, Fitness Matters, figured that out the hard way.

They asked current clients a lot of questions about why they liked the gym (oh, imagine how richer and deeper the material would have been if they'd asked for stories!), and realized their website and other marketing did not match. Particularly visually.

It was time for a re-do and now the stories they tell match the stories in their customer's heads.

So how's your business doing? Are your visuals and stories connecting with customers? Read the article for the process they used to make the marketing switch.

One of my Twitter buddies, Os @ICGJ_IDEATION, found and shared this article with me and I think these interactive storytelling activities could easily be adapted to business settings. The post was written by Anastasia Salter@AnaSalter for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

I'm always on the hunt for fun ways to work with stories in my business storytelling workshops. I think the first game will be really easy to adapt/work with.

For the second game, it will take a little work, but I think the free Google Doc can be tweaked to address complex business situations. I see this fitting nicely with the post I recently curated by Madelyn Blair on using narrative for problem solving.

I've always liked Story Cubes and think they are great for generating stories for all kinds of business situations, like sales and marketing. Instead of starting the story with "Once upon a time..." (that will never fly in business), I like using "It happened one day..."

So check out this post and start using these games for generating business stories, working through complex problems, and having more fun doing it all.

So this is embarrassing. Last week I wrote a story/blog about my recent haircut (you can read it here if you really want to…) and I did not follow my own advice about storytelling. Here’s what happened.

Karen Dietz's insight:

The practice of storytelling is full of lessons -- that apply to becoming a better storyteller. That's a little-known secret in our profession.

And thank heavens business story professional Lianne Picot from up in Toronto, Canada clues the world in with her latest blog. I love it. She shares a story and connects it to all the mistakes she made, and then links those mistakes back to lessons in how to tell better stories.

The tips at the end of the post are great and a good reminder list for crafting great stories.

Enjoy this unique twist. It's a good example of ways everyday life can help us perfect our craft.

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